Homemade pizza – it ain’t hard!

Seriously, this is easy, and so good! You can vary the ingredients to what you like.

This makes a slightly chewy crust, and if made to the 14” size it’s medium thick. Do it in a pan for soft crust, on a stone fro crispier. You can press this into cake pans for “pan pizza” or roll it very thin for a thin and crispy crust.

Dissolve the yeast in the water, stir in 1 C of flour, sugar, salt and oil till it forms a very wet, soft dough. Slowly stir in another 1 C of flour. Mix with your hands to add the remaining ½ C (or more) flour, and knead lightly (I do it right in the bowl) till the dough is soft and not sticky. Cover and refrigerate at least an hour, or up to over night. Punch down before you use.

Put it all in a saucepan, bring to a boil, reduce to simmer and cook until the liquid has reduced and it’s thickened a bit. It takes about 20 – 30 minutes.

This sauce could use another few minutes of simmering:

When you’re ready to make your pizza, preheat your oven to 450, or heat up a stone on your grill set at low.

Press, roll or toss your dough out to a 14” circle. If you are baking in a pan, you can press it right into the pan. If you are using a stone – dust a peel (or rimless cookie sheet) with LOTS of flour and lay the crust on it.

Drizzle the crust with olive oil then spoon on the sauce, spreading it out to almost the very edges.

Add a thin layer of cheese (I used deli sliced skim Mozzeralla, sliced super thin). Then a layer of pepperoni, then a layer of cheese, then mushrooms, then cheese.

Place pan in oven, or slide onto stone on low grill, close the lid and bake for about 20 minutes.

You can freeze the dough once you have it pressed out, and then you have crusts ready to go in your freezer. If you’re baking on a grill, let it thaw a bit before using, but in your oven, just top and bake. It may take a bit longer when frozen.

The way I made it, it came out with just the right amount of cheese for us – if you like super cheesey ‘za, add two layers of cheese between each topping layer.